The Frick Collection is housed in the former residence of Henry Clay Frick (1849–1919), which was designed by Thomas Hastings and constructed in 1913–14. After Mrs. Frick's death in 1931, changes and additions to the building were made by the architect John Russell Pope, and in 1935 the Collection was opened to the public.

The Frick Collection is an art museum located in the Henry Clay Frick House on the Upper East Side in New York City on Fifth Avenue, between 70th and 71st Street.

The Frick Collection is the final American venue of a global tour of paintings from the Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis in The Hague, the Netherlands. While the prestigious Dutch museum undergoes an extensive two-year renovation, it is lending masterpieces that have not traveled in nearly thirty years. At the Frick, a selection of fifteen paintings includes the beloved Girl with a Pearl Earring (c. 1665) by Johannes Vermeer and Carel Fabritius’s exquisite Goldfinch (1654). The exhibition continues the Frick’s tradition of presenting masterpieces from acclaimed museums not easily accessible to the New York public.

More than a selection of highlights from an acclaimed museum, the exhibition demonstrates the interests of artists and collectors during the Dutch Golden Age. Subjects less common in the previous century were widely embraced, among them, landscapes, genre scenes, and still lifes.

Over the course of the seventeenth century, the Dutch nation became one of the wealthiest and most powerful in the world, employing its naval prowess to dominate international trade and create a vast colonial empire. But this period began in turmoil. The 1568 revolt of the Seventeen Provinces (modern-day Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and sections of northern France and western Germany) against Philip II of Spain, the sovereign of the Habsburg Netherlands, led to the Eighty Years’ War, or Dutch War of Independence. Under William of Orange, the northern provinces overthrew the Habsburg armies and established the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, which in 1648 was recognized as an independent country. The Southern Netherlands remained under Catholic Spain’s control, prompting countless Flemish craftsmen to flee north, where their innovative techniques and pioneering subjects were disseminated throughout the Republic.

The newfound prosperity in the seventeenth century engendered great advancements in the arts and sciences. With surplus income, Dutch citizens enthusiastically purchased paintings and works of decorative art. What followed was an enormous surge in art production in an unprecedented variety of types and levels of quality.